FDISK(8) System Manager's Manual FDISK(8)
NAME
fdisk - partition a hard disk [IBM]
SYNOPSIS
fdisk [-hm] [-sn] [file]
OPTIONS
-h Number of disk heads is m
-s Number of sectors per track is n
EXAMPLES
fdisk /dev/hd0 # Examine disk partitions
fdisk -h9 /dev/hd0 # Examine disk with 9 heads
DESCRIPTION
When fdisk starts up, it reads in the partition table and displays it. It then presents a menu to allow the user to modify partitions,
store the partition table on a file, or load it from a file. Partitions can be marked as MINIX, DOS or other, as well as active or not.
Using fdisk is self-explanatory. However, be aware that repartitioning a disk will cause information on it to be lost. Rebooting the sys-
tem immediately is mandatory after changing partition sizes and parameters. MINIX, XENIX, PC-IX, and MS-DOS all have different partition
numbering schemes. Thus when using multiple systems on the same disk, be careful.
Note that MINIX, unlike MS-DOS , cannot access the last sector in a partition with an odd number of sectors. The reason that odd partition
sizes do not cause a problem with MS-DOS is that MS-DOS allocates disk space in units of 512-byte sectors, whereas MINIX uses 1K blocks.
Fdisk has a variety of other features that can be seen by typing h.
Fdisk normally knows the geometry of the device by asking the driver. You can use the -h and -s options to override the numbers found.
SEE ALSO
part(8).
FDISK(8)
